George Rawlinson

George Rawlinson (23 November 1812 – 6 October 1902) was an English classical scholar, professor of ancient history at the University of Oxford from 1861 to 1888, and Anglican canon of Canterbury from 1872 until his death. In 1869 he was elected an international member of the American Philosophical Society.

Quotes

  • ... There is an essential antagonism between European and Asiatic ideas and modes of thought, such as seemingly to preclude the possibility of Asiatics appreciating a European civilisation. The Persians must have felt towards the Greco-Macedonians much as the Mahometans of India feel towards ourselves—they may have feared and even respected them—but they must have very bitterly hated them.
    Nor was the rule of the Seleucidæ such as to overcome by its justice or its wisdom the original antipathy of the dispossessed lords of Asia towards those by whom they had been ousted. The satrapial system, which these monarchs lazily adopted from their predecessors, the Achæmenians, is one always open to great abuses, and needs the strictest superintendence and supervision. There is no reason to believe that any sufficient watch was kept over their satraps by the Seleucid kings, or even any system of checks established, such as the Achæmenidæ had, at least in theory, set up and maintained. ... The Greco-Macedonian governors of provinces seem to have been left to themselves almost entirely, and to have been only controlled in the exercise of their authority by their own notions of what was right or expedient. Under these circumstances, abuses were sure to creep in ...
  • ... All over Western Europe we see the barbarous races which overran and crushed the Roman empire settling down into a less wild and savage life, adopting the arts as well as the religion of the conquered, and gradually emulating or surpassing the civilization which at their first coming they destroyed. In our own time, and before our eyes, a civilizing process is going on in Russia and in Turkey; serfdom disappears; nomadic tribes become settled ; the arts, the habits, even the dress, of neighbouring nations, are in course of adoption ; and the Muscovite and Turkic hordes are becoming scarce distinguishable from other Europeans.
    But, while this is the more ordinary process, or at any rate the one which most catches the eye when it roves at large over the historic field, there are not wanting indications that the process is occasionally reversed. Herodotus tells us of the Geloni, ... a Greek people, who, having been expelled from the cities on the northern coast of the Euxine, had retired into the interior, and there lived in wooden huts, and spoke a language "half Greek, half Scythian." By the time of Mela this people had become completely barbarous, and used the skins of those slain by them in battle as coverings for themselves and their horses. ... A gradual degradation of the Greco-Bactrian people is apparent in the series of their coins, which is extant ...
This article is issued from Wikiquote. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.